Archives for October 2009

We oftentimes get accused of shooting our own here on Sonoran Alliance in the name of conservative principles. The majority of the time, I have to agree that the problem with the GOP is that we try to play down our conservatism at large by running moderate to liberal Republicans only to find out that after they win, they give the party a bad rep because they vote no different than the Democrat.

We’ve been watching the same thing unfold in Republican district 23 in New York between so-called Republican, Dierdre Scozzafava, and Conservative, Doug Hoffman. Today, Dierdre Scozzafava suspenced her campaign and effectively withdrew from the race (AP Story). This is definitely good news for conservatives as the voters will now have a clear difference when they vote next Tuesday between a liberal and a conservative. If Hoffman pulls a win off in NY-23 it will send a strong message (as will the Governor’s races in VA and NJ) that the people are mad as hell at Democrats, liberals and incumbents for that matter, and they ain’t gonna take it any more.

Agree with my premise or not, next Tuesday’s election will be an indirect referendum on the Obama Administration. There are millions of pissed off voters – many of them Independents – who have swung back right of center. As for NY-23, one lesson the GOP should take away is that Republicans need to revisit the doctrine that conservative principles are actually a winning platform.

“Isms” social, progressive, communal and otherwise … Take a visit to a time in this nation when Americans still understood the dangers of “ISMS.”

For those of you who don’t know, John Dewey is held as the father of modern American education; esteemed by educator’s and hailed as visionary by those who don’t know otherwise… In 1928 upon his return from Soviet Russia (communism) Dewey said,

I have never seen anywhere in the world such a large proportion of intelligent, happy, and intelligently occupied children” [New Republic, 1928]

John Dewey, an original signer of the Humanist Manifesto today would be proud of what he helped usher in … America, are you beginning to see what Obama is doing? The way has been paved by “fellow travelers” for over a century now.

United We Stand Tea Party (www.unitedwestandteaparty.org) is taking place right at the Arizona Capital from 12:30 – 2:30 PM. It is located at 1700 W. Washington in Phoenix. It is on Veteran’s Day, Wednesday, November 11, 2009.

Because it is NON-PARTISAN, the organizers have invited Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Sadly, they have not received any response from any Democrats.

Please, bring canned food for St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance. Please, help others by bringing food for the needy. We need to help our neighbors.

One of our taxpayer activists, Dorothy, wrote me an email (which I have pasted below), complaining about the huge increases in preschool fees that have been mandated this month by the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Here was my response:

Dear Dorothy—

Your daughter is dealing with a rotten government scam, from start to finish.

A lot of economists will tell you that the entire licensing scheme is a racket, and that nearly all of the useful and efficient regulation of child care centers is achieved through reputation, parental/consumer choice, and the tort system.

It is wrong for DHS to raise fees to astronomical heights to prop up a mostly useless licensing scheme.

Unfortunately, as you can see in this news article, the people who ostensibly defend the rights of children in Arizona have been barking up the wrong tree:

The child rights activists are demanding that the government spend more money to prop up the licensing scheme, when they should be working toward pulling the plug on the whole thing.

Thank you for writing to me. You have reminded me that I need to bring this matter up before members of the Legislature’s HHS committees.

For Liberty,

–Tom

Here was Dorothy’s email to me:

Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 8:50 AM

Hi Tom,

I’m not sure if you can help shed any light on the below email my daughter received from the preschool (Bethany Learning Center) that her son goes to. Is this a done deal? Is there anything we can do besides writing letters, etc. the director suggests. This seemed to come out of nowhere – we hadn’t heard anything about it.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dorothy

Dear Parents,

As most of you have either heard or read this past week, The Department of Health Services is planning a licensing increase for licensed preschools. The increase will be raised by 8,800 percent. For (Name of preschool withheld) our fee will multiply from $150.00 to $13,442.00 based on the sliding scale fee schedule. The proposal for the increase was made due to deep budget cuts. Unfortunately the escalation of this proportion is outrageous.

This increase in fees comes at a difficult time for preschool and child-care providers. We have all been hit hard with the recession. The implementation of these new fees with no time to plan or budget is too much too fast. We agree the rates are due to go up, however this is something that needs to be done gradually not overnight.

(Name of preschool withheld), as most facilities, is scrambling to figure out how this increase can be paid for. Ultimately these costs are likely to be passed on to families who attend each facility. The Department of Health Services is organizing a public meeting in Phoenix on Tuesday, October 27, from 5:00-6:00pm, for those of us affected by this increase to offer some alternatives to the proposed fee structure. If you are as concerned as I am about the increase in licensing fees, plan on attending the meeting so your voice can be heard.

As the Director of (name withheld) I would like to encourage you write a letter to Governor Jan Brewer letting her know that this is outrageous. It is a back door tax being imposed and it has the potential of putting facilities such as ours out of business. The governor signed this bill; she needs to be aware of the impact. In addition your concerned e-mails to the legislators letting them know that this fee structure will be devastating to child-care facilities will employ them to get involved. I have included the links to the e-mails of Will Humble – Interim Director of Department of Health Services; Bob Burns – President of the Senate; Kirk Adams – Speaker of the House; Nancy Barto – Chairperson of the Health and Human Services Committee; the Senate Appropriations Committee members; the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee; and Governor Brewer’s office.

This just in from Senate President Burns. From a public relations standpoint, this could become a sore point for the focus-like-a-laserbeam-on the budget crowd, but it will also ensure that other bills get started and heard in a timely manner. I’m willing to bet there are a lot of legislators down at the Capitol who are not looking forward to going through the next session with the budget deficit still not resolved. By hearing non-budget related bills in addition to resolving the budget crisis, the next session’s workload may take the incentive out of being a “citizen legislator” at $24,000/year (plus per diem). Many of the Democrats are there as activists or because they see it as a “political hobby.” Yes, there are some conservative activists down there but I find little to disagree with them on public policy and the budget.

As we prepare for the upcoming legislative session, I believe it is necessary to outline the Senate schedule with regards to committee consideration of bills. While I maintain that the State’s financial condition is the most pressing issue and should remain a key focus, all standing committees will meet and take legislative action when session begins. I urge all committee chairs to use their discretion in placing priority on which bills advance through the process and are vital to the citizens of Arizona. I intend to coordinate with the Speaker on the schedule for next year, but I wanted to quell the rumors about the Senate order of business.

State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema recently rebuked U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl in the pages of the East Valley Tribune for recommending that “stimulus” funding be terminated. The federal government, by spending $308 million on infrastructure in Arizona, is providing a “much needed economic boost” to the state, she claimed.

Nobody can say for certain what might have happened without this $767 billion handout. But economic downturns always work themselves out. Markets are inherently self-correcting. In fact, there is a strong possibility that the massive bailouts and market manipulations by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve have lengthened and deepened our current recession.

But there’s another, more fundamental problem with the “stimulus” program. It isn’t paid for with real money. The federal government is simply sharing the use of its magic printing press with the states for a while.

Printing trillions of dollars to pay for today’s wishes is wretched economic policy. When the stimulus money runs out, states will be in worse shape than ever because of the program expansions required to obtain the stimulus funds. Sooner rather than later, states will be forced to face the bitter reality of a “near permanent reduction in state revenues that will force us to reduce the size and scope of our state governments,” according to Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, writing in the Wall Street Journal.

Like many individual Americans, many states spent extravagantly in the good economic times of this decade, making no provision for the future. Arizona unfortunately was one of the worst offenders. Now, that future is here. States are banking on an economic rebound, but gross domestic product growth would have to average 7 percent, twice the historic average, for revenues to be restored to their previous level by 2012.

In response to declining tax revenues, more than half the states have raised taxes. But today’s mobile individuals and businesses simply flee states that try to sock it to them. Beneficiary states are like Indiana, where state spending has been severely reduced and the tax climate is business-friendly. This year alone, more than 30 businesses have moved from tax-and-spend states to Indiana.

Yet Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer still insists on protecting state spending as much as possible by raising taxes. But she’s just postponing the day of reckoning. There is no choice but to fundamentally reduce the scope of state government or face permanent economic decline. Daniels notes that “wishing for an improbably huge boom while chasing your own tail through self-destructive taxes won’t prove much of a strategy.” Is anybody listening?

With the Tucson City council elections just days away, Karin Uhlich is showing her true feeling towards her constituents. Rather than standing on the issues and her own voting record, she has now laid the smack-down by calling those who oppose her, “Tea baggers”. Not unexpected from the state-run media, but somewhat shocking from my local “enlightened” council-gal.

“In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly, will cease of themselves, unless too much pains is bestowed upon their conversion.”

October 28, 2009

David Smith’s Private Twilight Zone – It is not what you think it is

There is a place in another dimension, where a confluence of seemingly unrelated elements is found, joined by the glue of pure circumstance. That we have discovered them at all might be attributed to serendipity, though some could argue, given David Smith’s obtuse actions, our discovery was all but inevitable. The elements are basic, human behavior, the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and clueless, blundering.

Maricopa County (Arizona) County Manager David Smith is our anti-hero. Freshly emerged from a series of inept moves, one would think Mr. Smith should have learned to think seriously about the nature of cause and effect. One would think, but given his history, we know better.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, at whose pleasure Mr. Smith serves, has been involved in a long running battle against the office of the County Attorney, Andrew Thomas. Several of the board members are under criminal investigation by the County Attorney. With misguided wisdom, the Board of Supervisors has sought to undermine those investigations using a series of gimmicks including withholding much needed funds from the office of the County Attorney. That these actions have drawn considerable attention from a disapproving public is not astonishing. The local blogs has been aflame with incriminations, finger pointing and fact corrections offered by cognoscenti, as well as lesser lights.

The Board of Supervisors has not been pleased, to say the least. He, or she, caught with a hand in the cookie jar is never happy, and repeatedly, bloggers have found Board member hands in the jar, or at least have been able to report crumb-coated fingers, guilty grins and missing cookies. One would think the Board, and its appointed manager, would take the hint and strike a lower profile. One would think, but then again, logic does not seem to be a guiding principle of these people. Attempted retribution is what they pulled out of their bag of tricks yesterday, with dismal results.

David Smith is demanding that several employees of the County Attorney’s office disclose details of their communications with various media, including their private communication sent from their personal computers during non-work hours. It is here that we find the confluence of their foolishness, the First Amendment and human behavior.

Our Founding Fathers, primarily at the insistence of Thomas Jefferson, endowed upon us a legacy of freedom, based in part on these immortal words: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press… David Smith appears to be nibbling at the edges of the First Amendment, never an advisable thing to do, and in the process, has triggered the third element of our extraordinary confluence – human behavior, specifically the manifestation of aggression that comes from frustration. Psychologists tell us that more arguments result from interruption of speech than any other source. David Smith tells us to shut up; we feel frustrated and lash out ever more aggressively in our blogs.

This begs the question: why does the Board of Supervisors tolerate such behavior from their chief employee, and has the time come for him to step down? Furthermore, if they are in complicity, shouldn’t they all seek new jobs? We believe that this would be C O M M O N S E N S E.

Who the author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the Doctrine itself, not the Man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle.

President Obama’s administration is SO good at resolving our economic calamities that they are now going to TRIPLE-DOWN on GMAC. According to the LA Times, GM is simply too big to fail, which makes perfect sense as long as Barack continues to throw billions down the rat hole. Even though the president has told us that he has brought us back from the brink in May, in September, and October, apparently General Motor’s financial division did not get that memo.

A Treasury Department spokesman confirmed that it was in talks with GMAC about a third helping of aid. The government already owns a 35 percent stake in GMAC after providing $12.5 billion to the lender. It also owns a majority-stake in GM and a smaller stake in Chrysler.

Kirk Ludtke, a senior vice president of CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Conn., who follows GMAC, said the automakers can’t succeed without GMAC. “We continue to believe that a viable GMAC is critical to the success of GM and Chrysler,” Ludtke said. [This in spite of the fact that GMAC posted a wider second-quarter loss of $3.9 billion].

Treasury’s move would make GMAC the only U.S. company to receive three rounds of bailout aid.

Last December, the government gave GMAC $5 billion in exchange for 5 million shares and GMAC’s agreement to extend financing services to bailed-out Chrysler LLC.

Then in May, the Treasury Department announced a new $7.5 billion injection for GMAC — short of the $11.5 billion the government’s stress test showed the company would need to stay afloat if the economy worsens.

And now, The Wall Street Journal first reported late Tuesday that the U.S. government could hand over another $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion to Detroit-based GMAC.

In less than one year, Barack will sling $15 billion+ into a company that continues to plummet into obscurity. A wise farmer friend of mine shares the best common-sense advice: when you find yourself deep in a hole, STOP DIGGING. But again we are talking about common sense, which is none too common in Washington DC.

About Sonoran Alliance

Arizona's most popular and prominent political blog covering political news and events, commentary and information with a blatantly conservative worldview. We are an alliance of writers, activists, consultants and government insiders.